This Little Piggy Went To...

...the Dutch oven.

That's right. This is one of the tastiest and easiest things we've made thus far. We are talking about P-Dub's Spicy Pulled Pork (p. 94). Next to the Perfect Pot Roast, this recipe is our favoritest. Yep, we used a made-up word, it's that good.

Start with a food processor. Make friends with your food processor. It's about to make you some tasty stuff. Into the food processor goes onion, garlic, salt, olive oil, white wine vinegar, brown sugar, chili powder, oregano and cumin. Then stick your nose close to the top of the bowl, and take a whiff. You won't regret it.

Pulse the food processor five or six times to fully blend and emulsify the ingredients. You'll feel really chef-like using the food processor. Jo sure did. Lou gave it a spin too. We never out-grow our toys. We just change the type of toys we play with as we age. The mixture should be about the color of Oklahoma clay.

Next, take your pork shoulder (we ended up with a six-pounder)...

 ...and spread the mixture over both sides making sure all surfaces are covered.

Place this in the Dutch oven, pouring the remaining spice mixture on top. P-Dub calls for adding two cups of water. We had enough mixture left, so we added it along with just one cup of water. The liquid helps the meat to remain tender and moist as it cooks.

We put the lid on the Dutch oven and placed it in the oven at 300 degrees for about five hours. We have found with roasts a good ratio, generally speaking, is roughly an hour per pound. With this recipe you turn the roast about every hour of its cooking time.

Once it's finally done, it should be falling apart. We noticed it was slowly falling apart as we turned the meat the last couple of hours. We set the meat aside to rest a few minutes and joined a mariachi band.

Next we shredded the pork using two forks. We would be lying if we did not say we sampled a few bites. You know - just to make sure the meat was good enough to share. Unfortunately, it was.

The remaining mixture was still in the pot. We thought this could create a great sauce. Mr. Fabuful added corn starch and let it boil as it thickened. He also made refried black beans. That boy can make some mean food.

We readied the rest of our food: tortillas, lime wedges, queso fresco and alcoholic pineapple. Yes, that's right. That pineapple was not as fresh as we had hoped when Jo cut it up that afternoon. We wondered why The Bean made such a face when he tried the pineapple first. It tasted like there was a shot of bourbon in the pineapple. Weird. It perhaps was incorrectly advertised in the "fresh" produce department at the grocery store. That, or it fermented on its ride from Hawaii to Kansas.

See here the plated, finished product. *Sigh...*

Please try this. Or, if pork is not kosher to you, do a brisket.

Happily full,



P.S. Join us at the McPherson County Numana event, this coming Saturday, June 4! Register here.